Legislature to scrap Kasich’s school funding plan

When John Kasich came into office in 2011, he immediately scrapped Governor Strickland’s “evidence based” school funding plan. Kasich promised his own plan in a few months.

Two years later, Kasich finally revealed his plan to a room full of school superintendents, who were initially impressed. Kasich promised poor districts would be getting more money under his plan.

But just as we predicted, the whole thing was a lie. Per pupil funding dropped, the majority of poor districts saw no increases in state funding after seeing massive cuts in the last budget, and poorly performing charters got a bump in funding at the expense of public schools,

And Richard Ross, Kasich’s chief education advisor and co-architect of the plan, defended the new funding model by making jokes about teaching kids music using computers instead of hiring an expensive music teacher.

Kasich developed his plan in a vacuum with no input from key stakeholders. He even excluded legislators from his own party who would ultimately be responsible for passing the plan through the General Assembly.

After spending $50K on headhunters to conduct a “thorough search” for a new Schools Superintendent, they ultimately decided to hire Kasich’s education czar and architect of the failed Kasich school funding plan.

Ross will be replacing Stan Heffner, the former superintendent who was forced to resign because of a scandal first brought to light here at Plunderbund.

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Hmmm. I’m sure Kasich’s charter school donors had some input into the failed plan. And I’m sure they’ll have a great deal of input into the new one too. I’m only surprised that Kasich hasn’t pushed for Creationism yet….

duckmonkeyman

In business, it is called the “Moses Complex”. Some executive(s) with an inflated ego go up on the mountain (usually some swanky retreat), think they talk to God, ignore the people doing the work, and mystically reappear with a plan carved on tablets. Always an epic fail.

School treasurers, superintendents, and local association leaders can read a ledger and the revenue data–rhetoric and flaccid, flippant faux support don’t hold much sway with the real bottom line–which has been, by the way, unconstitutional in Ohio since 1997 except for the Evidence-based model our current governor scrapped.

Kasich’s “funding plan” is the payback to educators for the massive defeat of SB5–Kasich’s middle name is “revenge”. He wants to ruin public education in Ohio. He believes in Charter Schools because his big donors run them. Our Super from Franklin was 100% correct in his outcry about the lies Kasich told Super’s–then Kasich sent out his Warren County Prosecutor(henchman) to quiet him down. Please hurry 2014 and get rid of this boob!